Milton’s Paradise Lost

Milton’s Paradise Lost

John Milton, book's author

Illustrated by Gustave Dore
Edited with notes and life by Robert Vaughan

Chicago: Belford, Clark & Co.

1885

1st edition

Megan Lepak researched and wrote the event description in 2018.

For a description of the book, please click on the image of the event label/description or scroll to the bottom of the page for the section entitled "Text" for a transcription of the attached document.

Literature / Art

SPECIAL PR3562 .S38 1885

English, book's contents
English, event description

To see this book on November 15, 2018 in the "Event Photographs" Collection, please go here [Photograph of Books] 05451, here [Photograph of Books] 05457, and here [Photograph of Books] IMG_0602.

Transcription of event description:

MILTON'S PARADISE LOST | JOHN MILTON, GUSTAVE DORE, ILLUS., ROBERT VAUGHAN | CHICAGO: BELFORD CLARK & CO. | 1885 | 1ST EDITION

This oversized book offers a lot to marvel at. The covers are made from a terra-cotta colored cloth over bevelled boards. The front cover and spine features decoration in black and gold stamping. The cover design offers an interesting combination of organic and inorganic elements to create a visual narrative. A gilt archangel is depicted swooping down with a flaming sword in the upper right corner so as to symbolize the light from Heaven, while satan is illustrated sitting upon a pile of rocks in the lower left in a black stamped area, showing the contrast between good and evil. These differences are also illustrated in the figures’ contrasting facial expressions - righteousness versus condemnation. The organic designs (trees and clouds) are expertly incorporated into alternating gold and black stamping that frame the title. The spine also features similar imagery of Heaven and the archangel’s perilous battle against the flames of Hell. Overall, this imagery clearly speaks to the content of the book. While in contrast, the endpapers are quaintly decorated in block printed green and white florals. To complete the binding, this extravagant book has had its textblock painted in gold leaf (A.E.G.).

Within the textblock, illustrations are seen on plates made of heavy, brilliant paper. The images look like steel engravings. These images certainly make good use of the drama of light and dark. This book is beautiful in that it portrays the content of the text so well and in such a dramatic manner. The use of intricate designs certainly appeals to all audiences.

Milton’s Paradise Lost is his version, influenced by Puritan ideas, of the story of Adam and Eve. Renowned 19th century French artist and engraver, Gustave Doré, is the illustrator for this book, and the cover is based off one of his illustrations. For those uninterested in reading Elizabethan English, “read” the illustrations instead as they are so lurid, dramatic, and detailed that the story comes alive. Other books illustrated by Doré include Don Quixote, The Divine Comedy, and rivaling only Paradise Lost for its fame, The Bible. Doré died two years before this edition was printed in 1883.

This book was donated to the library in the 1990s by English Professor Emeritus Dr. Andrew Dillon.

Book / Unpublished Print Document